H-1 Bladesteel, will it rust?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
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I pride myself on being quite cynical, i don’t trust anything, especially advertising, i automatically assume all ads are nothing more than blatant lies designed to seperate me from my money with the minimum of fuss…

so, when i saw a Spyderco Pacific Salt knife in H-1 steel that claims to be completely rustproof, i didn’t believe it, i read threads on Bladeforums and the Spyderco website detailing people’s efforts to get H-1 steel to rust…

every test that was thrown at it, it passed, immersion in salt water, in chlorinated water, one person went so far as to wrap some copper wire around the opening hole and ran a current through the blade while it was immersed in salt water, for months on end

no rust

i was still cynical, but i was looking for a new knife anyway, so i picked up a Pacific Salt, determined to test it myself

so far, i’ve submerged the Pacific in fresh water for a week, no rust
i’ve used it to cut sandwiches for lunch, rinsed it off in water, wiped it down, and pocketed it, no rust

so far, it’s resisted my casual attempts to rust it, time to get serious

this afternoon at aroound 2:20 PM, i set up my spare 2.5 gallon tank, filled it with about 52 OZ of fresh Atlantic Ocean seawater, from York Harbor Beach, popped in a bubble wall wand, and hooked it up to a small air pump to create a highly agressive and corrosive salt spray/foam

i leaned the knives against the wall of the tank, directly over the bubble wall, which was producing a large amount of salt spray and protein foam

i put in a few other knives with the Salt…
a Sheffield hawkbill knife (cheap $8 knife i could never get sharpened, probably 400 series bladesteel)
a cheapo butterfly knife that was beginning to fall apart (400 series stainless again)
a Buck Metro keyring knife (420-J2 bladesteel)

after a little over an hour, the first victim showed signs of corrosion, the cheap, crappy Sheffield, distinct rust spots appeared on the “stainless steel” blade, the other knives were unaffected so far

i went out for the afternoon, got back in at around 7 PM, and checked the tank again…

the Sheffield showed distinct enlarging patches of rust on both sides of the blade, and the edge, the handle liners were also beginning to rust
the butterfly knife showed small spots of rust in the serrations
the Metro’s blade was beginning to grow dull, but no rust yet
the Pacific Salt was still unaffected, the blade was just as shiny as when i put it in the tank

so far, the Pacific seems to live up to it’s reputation as an “Un-rustable” steel

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Nice. But how well does it hold an edge?

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actually not too bad, i’d say midway between AUS-8 and VG-10, no, it doesn’t hold an edge as long as VG-10 or CPM-S30V, but it has far better corrosion resistance

another nice thing about H-1 is that it’s incredibly easy to maintain, once you’ve got the edge Scary Sharp™, for the most part all it needs is a little light stropping to maintain the edge, a couple passes on a sheet of cardboard, your jeans leg, or a leather strop and the edge is back

when you do have to resharpen, a few passes on your favorite sharpening system (i prefer the Sharpmaker) and a quick strop and it’s back to Scary Sharp™

to give you an idea of how sharp H-1 can get, a few days ago i went and got a reuben sandwich for lunch, the sandwich was overstuffed and on oversized bread, so i had to cut it, it sailed through the sandwich like it wasn’t there, bear in mind that this is a plain edge knife, not serrated, and serrated blades typically cut breads better than plain edge, the Pacific had no problem cutting the sandwich, no squishing, or tearing, nice, clean cut

so, after i cut the sandwich, i went to rinse the blade off, then grabbed a couple paper towels to dry the blade, i bunched up the paper towels and pulled them along the blade, spine facing my hand, edge pointing up

i went back to my desk to eat, and after a few minutes, i felt a stinging sensation in my left index finger tip…

it turns out that the Pacific had cut through two paper towels and shaved off a 1/8" flap of skin off my fingertip, it cleanly cut through the two epidermal layers, yet didn’t draw blood, it was a clean, surgical shave cut…through two paper towels

now that’s sharp…

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Here’s my thread on the Spyderco forums if anyone’s interested, it has pics embedded

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Uber knife geek review of the Pacific salt

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36+ hour report;
some evaporation of the test water has occured, salinity has gone up (not sure what, as i have no hygrometer…)

Pacific Salt; laughing haughtily at the pathetic attempts of Atlantic seawater to corrode it, metal is still shiny and gleaming, completely unaffected

CCC Balisong; definite rust spots on it now, it’s down for the count at the 36 hour mark, however it did impress me with it’s corrosion resistance, to be able to withstand 36 hours in a highly corrosive environment when the Sheffield hawkbill died in ONE hour…

Buck Metro; still unaffected, however, a thin layer of salt is starting to condense on the edges of the scales, blade is unaffected, the Metro is also impressing me, if it handles abuse this well, i may have to put it back on the keyring, yes it’s bladesteel sucks, but it outlasted the Sheffield and the CCC Bali…

Heh, i was actually worried this afternoon that i might be “ruining” my Pacific, but seeing it’s steadfast refusal to corrode has actually got me more willing to try to rust it